AT&T DSL Internet Complaint

AWFUL customer service, sub-par products. - Tech Support

Nothing about AT&t "high speed" internet is fast. Not the customer support, and definitely not the internet service.

We had AT&T dsl for 4 years because it was cheap, and we recently moved just a few blocks west of where we have been living, and thought it would be relatively simple to move service to our new apartment. Apparently not. We spent the week before our move talking in circles in different customer support phone and chat conversations. We were told they could NOT provide service at our new address. We were told they COULD provide service at our new address. We were told they could not provide the service we had been getting but they could provide a different service. We were told they service every unit in our building just not our unit. We were told we were outside of their service area. We were told we were in their service area. Mix and match various details of above stories and you get a pretty good idea of how all the conversations went.

So after a week of many different stories about if, how, why, and when they could provide service, AFTER we move in they finally decide that they can in fact provide service at our new apartment, but only U-Verse(which is still dsl), not the basic dsl we've been receiving. It was going to take a week for it to be activated and cost us about $60 in set up fees plus $100 for a special "U-Verse modem" that is somehow required for U-verse.

So we recieved the $100 U-verse modem in the mail, which sat around my apartmet for about a week looking like a pretty piece of black plastic.

We then received an email that said, and I quote: "Your AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet Max - D installation is scheduled for 9:00 AM-11:00 AM on 2012-09-04. An installation technician will be dispatched to your residence, someone over the age of 18 must be present on the day of installation."

So my wife takes off the first half the day from work to be home for this technician. 11am comes, no technician. She calls AT&T. They say they don't know what we're talking about, the time window is not 9-11, it is 8am-8pm, the tech will call when he arrives.

??

So my wife goes to work and I come home from work early to take over waiting around for a tech to come make our U Verse High Speed Internet Max D a reality.

its getting close to 6pm, wife's home from work,we thought we'd call just to see if there's any hint of when this tech is coming.

We were told the tech came at 2pm, he DIDN'T need us to be present, and was TOO BUSY to call either of us.

??!! TOO BUSY? I was TOO BUSY to take off work for this joker, and so was my wife, but we did it even though apparently we didn't have to. WTF?

Oh, the best part? Still NO internet service.

SO I call the next day. Where's my internet? I tell a sweet but clueless woman named Cynthia all about the past weeks' events, emphasizing the awful inconvenience of yesterday's unproductive fiasco.

She offers to send another tech out tomorrow between 5pm and 9pm. Tech calls before he arrives, arrives exactly at 5pm, spends about 15-20 minutes testing lines and twisting screws in the utility room (a room that could not have been accessed without me, so I don't know what the hell the previous tech did), a few minutes later, voila! Internet.

So great, after an almost 3 week hassle someone finally did something right. That's nice, not at all efficient or satisfactory, but a nice break from AT&T's long string of failures. But When we moved we switched from low grade DSL to top grade U-Verse internet Max D (and no one has successfully explained to me the difference between U-verse and dsl), but far as I can tell, there is no difference in quality. I supposedly have the fastest internet they can give me, and everything loads just as slowly as it did when I was a mere low end dsl recipient.

I am NOT happy. We spent the first TWO weeks at our new apartment with no internet, the whole set up and activation experience was chock full of horrible failings, long conversations with knowledge-less agents who provided an ever changing buffet of conflicting and inconsistent information, and in the process we lost money because of work we should have been doing but could not do because of our lack of internet.

And the end result of this chaos wasn't impressive internet speeds, just the same ol lagging internet.

I am not paying for the set up fees, that's for sure. I'm tempted to just not pay it, without telling them, and say I was "TOO BUSY" to call them about it. As soon as I can find another affordable option I am dropping AT&T. Don't use them if you can help it at all.

Comments

After wasting valuable time over a period of 3 weeks, I left AT&T DSL.

I had called to ask about a sudden jump in my monthly bill, and was told that I could pay but a few dollars more than my old billed amount and get in a special promotion that would give me a phone number as well as my Internet service.

When my bill came, I discovered they were now charging me for 2 accounts.

After I tried to get that straightened out, I was told that -- by way of apology -- I could get my original service at the introductory rate of $25 and would not be charged for the second service (with a phone number).

Later I got billed for the full amount that I had called to ask about in the first place, and later got another bill charging me for the second service after all for the time I had had dual accounts -- unknown to me.

I think the sales people do not always know what they're doing. And the billing department do not know what deals the sales people are doing.

Is there any other agency that takes more formal complaints concerning AT&T?